‘No, I’m not!’ Lucy gasped in stricken outrage.
Shrugging a wide muscular shoulder in a very Latin dismissal of that protest, Joaquin continued to rest his incisive green eyes on her angry face. ‘In this life we all end up settling for the best we can get. So choose between me and the money you conned out of Fidelio. You can have one but not both. And if you choose me, it will be only on my terms.’
‘I just can’t believe you’re talking like this to me!’ Lucy confessed with raw honesty.
‘Isn’t it marvellous that you should still possess that endearing little streak of almost child-like innocence when things don’t pan out quite the way you planned them?’ A grim smile flashed across his devastatingly handsome features as he paused by the door. ‘No man in his right mind would keep you in an office, querida. When you punched the keyboard you crashed the whole system. I’ll have to contact my head office in London to get those figures now.’
In a daze, Lucy focused on the monitor, which had gone all blurry and now bore a large error message. The other two computer monitors bore similar messages as well. Momentarily she closed her eyes to get a grip on her seething emotions. But Joaquin had knocked her sideways. He had a head office of some kind in London? How often was he in London? Dismayed by thoughts that should have no place in her head, she experienced a burst of self-loathing. Even if Joaquin Del Castillo was in London every blasted week she would never willingly set eyes on him again! He was so sure of himself, so certain he had her where he wanted her. Well, he would soon find out that she learnt from her mistakes!
Lucy went off in search of Yolanda, and with the assistance of a maid eventually ran her to earth in a custom-built gym where the gorgeous brunette was doing what appeared to be graceful ballet exercises at a bar.
‘I’ve thought over what you’ve said,’ Lucy proclaimed, coming to a breathless halt several feet away. ‘I’ll take your help…I want to go home!’
As that last phrase emerged, more in the nature of an over-emotional wail, Yolanda stilled to stare at Lucy. ‘So Joaquin’s been spreading his special variety of joy and happiness in your direction as well.’
‘This has got nothing to do with your wretched brother!’ Lucy snapped, rather foolishly in the circumstances.
Yolanda’s attention had already strayed. Her lustrous brown eyes glowed with satisfaction. ‘I’d love to see Joaquin’s face when he realises that we’ve both done a vanishing act!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
BY LATE evening of the same day, Lucy had learnt just how hard and embarrassing it could be to perform a vanishing act in which Yolanda Del Castillo played a leading role.
Noting with relief that the volatile girl was now asleep, Lucy subsided back into her own comfortable seat on the plane. Just an hour into a flight to London, Lucy was counting the cost: her nerves were in shreds and she was exhausted. Yet Yolanda had engineered their departure from Hacienda De Oro with remarkable efficiency.
While Lucy had sweated blood over the writing of an explanatory letter to Joaquin concerning the cash transfer which Cindy had promised for Fidelio, Yolanda’s maid had packed for Lucy and whisked away her suitcase. She had then been shown down to a rear exit. Outside had sat a four-wheel drive with Yolanda in the back seat.
‘Lucy, hurry up and drive off before we’re seen!’ she had urged.
That was when Lucy had discovered why she had been so essential to Yolanda’s plans. Yolanda had seen Lucy’s driving licence in her handbag.
‘Of course I do not drive myself,’ the brunette had responded when Lucy had voiced her surprise. ‘I am always driven, but if I ask one of the staff to take me to the airport Joaquin will find out long before I get there!’
Lucy had found that long drive a nightmare. She had never driven such a huge car before, nor had she had prior experience of driving on a different side of the road. Then there had been the horrors of the busy traffic in Guatemala city, the wrong turns she had made, the cars that had hooted furiously at her. Lucy had been a nervous wreck by the time they’d finally reached the airport. But there had been worse to come…
Even two hours after the event, Lucy just cringed at the memory of the dreadful scene Yolanda had thrown when she’d been told there were no seats left on the flight she wanted to board. She had proclaimed that she was Yolanda Del Castillo at the top of her voice. She had ranted and raved until she’d got what she wanted. She had also insisted that Lucy’s economy class ticket be upgraded.
‘Joaquin is held in huge regard in my country. They will bump other passengers off the flight for my benefit,’ Yolanda had forecast smugly. ‘After all, it is a great honour that I, a Del Castillo, should travel on their airline!’
That forecast had proved correct. Then Yolanda had thrown another tantrum on boarding, to ensure that they secured the most spacious front seats in the first class section. Two middle-aged businessmen had scuttled into other seats like mice. Worst of all, Lucy had received censorious glances from other passengers, as if they somehow imagined she ought to be cooling Yolanda’s outrageous behaviour.
No longer was Lucy surprised that Joaquin had been playing the heavy big brother with his demanding sister. Yolanda was immature—outright uncontrollable if she was crossed—and terrifyingly unscrupulous. More like a nightmare teenager than an adult, Lucy conceded inwardly. Had great wealth and too much indulgence made Yolanda that way? Had Joaquin been trying hard to straighten his sister out?
‘I really like you, Lucy,’ Yolanda had confided before she’d gone to sleep. ‘When I’ve set up my own apartment in London you can come and visit me if you want.’
Lucy just couldn’t understand why she was feeling so responsible for Yolanda all of a sudden, but it seemed to her that in spite of her stunning looks and seeming sophistication Yolanda was woefully unsuited to the independence and freedom she craved.
With every airborne mile that carried her further from Guatemala and Joaquin, Lucy got more and more miserable. How would Cindy feel about her coming home without having sorted out her twin’s problems in the way she had hoped and expected? Joaquin would be even more furious that Lucy had vanished along with his temperamental sister. It just seemed that no matter what she did, she did it wrong…
‘I’ll call you when I have time,’ Yolanda promised as her cases were loaded into the cab which Lucy had procured for her outside Heathrow. ‘Don’t expect to hear from me too soon, though. Socially, I shall be very much in demand.’
Lucy went straight to her sister’s apartment. Cindy was stunned to find her on the doorstep, but her first reaction after she overcame her astonishment was to give Lucy a relieved hug. ‘Thank goodness you’re home! Did you get everything settled?’
‘Not quite—’
‘You didn’t sign that agreement, did you?’
Lucy shook her head and explained the situation she had left behind. While engaged in making a welcome cup of tea for her twin, Cindy listened anxiously and then bega
n to look perplexed.
‘Why do you keep on saying his name that way?’
‘Whose name?’
‘Joaquin…’
Lucy flushed. ‘I’m not saying it any way. He was just pretty central to events, that’s all.’
Her twin refused to be sidetracked. ‘Are you telling me that you went and fell for the guy who’s trying to wreck my life?’
‘With a little bit of luck it won’t come to that if you settle this business with Mario’s father once and for all.’
‘I will. I saw a solicitor yesterday and he’ll handle it. But right now it’s you I’m more interested in.’
‘I just want to forget I ever went to Guatemala,’ Lucy muttered truthfully.
Silence lay for a second or two.
Then Cindy shrugged. ‘Well, if Del Castillo comes here looking to cause more trouble, he won’t find me. I’ve been hired by a film unit that starts shooting in Scotland this weekend and I have to be at the studios in another hour!’
‘Sounds like fun…’ Lucy concealed her disappointment that her twin was leaving almost as soon as she herself arrived.
‘But it means I won’t be here to help you get your flat packed up. The buyer wants possession as soon as possible. And the sooner he gets in, the sooner Fidelio gets his cash,’ Cindy pointed out. ‘I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to tell Roger.’
‘You know…I thought you’d be furious with me for just coming home.’
Cindy grimaced, her colour heightening. ‘Yolanda fairly put me in my box with what she said on the phone. Why should you take the heat for me? I’m sorry that I got you into this mess in the first place,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘My sins have come back to haunt me and I’ll just have to handle the fall-out as best I can.’
With that one brief and effective little speech, Lucy felt the difference between her twin and her more impressionable and anxious self. Cindy might have panicked when she’d first learnt about Fidelio’s predicament and Joaquin’s demands, but ultimately Cindy rolled with the punches and took each day as it came.